Solar and the Meaning of Life

We believe a solar economy is possible, but we can’t be relaxed about it.
Our Plan Is To Do Something About It

Our aim is to strike at the heart of our social and ecological problems, all of which are either directly caused by or fundamentally enabled by our bio-fossil energy system — and so the solution must be fundamentally an energy one, as we’ve known for a while. But because the hour is late we now must solve a lot more problems than just energy, we must not only technically produce a solution but scale it super quick, in shaky financial times, against the business as usual plan of the fossil fuel interests, furthermore the solution must be inclusive to half or more of humanity that has little financial access and the solution must be resilient against global economic disruptions.

In other words, an energy solution must be low capital (lower the
better), yet power a viable economy, and be locally buildable and
maintainable with little or no imports. If such a system can be found it
could be scaled all over the globe simultaneously without reliance on
any inter-government treaty and wouldn’t break-down (could even continue
scaling) in the event of serious global economic dislocations... And at
GoSol, we think we have found it.

Though effective inter-government treaties, global economic
stability, milder than expected climate events, and peaceful times
certainly help a great deal, and should be hoped for and striven for as
best we can, an overarching energy transition plan must account for one
or several of these things going worse than expected.

At the end of the day people need energy where they are, if they can
build a renewable and clean energy device where they are, with the means
they have, then that would be a viable solution.

It’s not an unfamiliar concept: Most people on earth take it for
granted that they can build and light a wood fire right where they are
to cook, heat themselves and power a range of commercial and industrial
processes. We want to transfer the knowledge to just as many people that
they can build a solar device right where they are and access even more
energy, clean and sustainably. If this starts to be taken for granted
then we’re getting somewhere.

Such a method might exist but may not be obvious. In the case of
fire it was not "obvious", humans are the only species, as far as we
know, to have mastered fire in the 2 billion years history of earth, so
too for accessing solar energy ever where a method may exist that is not
obvious but must be invented, learned and mastered globally before taken
for granted.

However, in the discovery of fire there wasn’t any short term risk
of catastrophe if our ancestors didn’t master fire, they could take
their sweet time, the mastery of solar is on the other hand on a time
schedule: We have to master solar as fast as possible, the faster the
better.

And the only way to master solar faster right now is with your
participation. Free construction guides is the only way to scale a
potential "GoSol Method" rapidly. Join us now!

Do you really think our plan of viral exponential construction is feasible?

Yes, because three things have recently changed:
1. Fossil fuels and biomass energy are finite when over-exploited,
our exploitation of them leads to depletion and cost increases, which
shifts the goal posts in our direction making it easier to get to
“cheaper than”.
2. The Internet allows information and experience to be spread at
incredible speeds. Getting the information out there followed by much
implementation at local scales all around the globe is required to get
to technology and business models adapted locally. The Internet can
massively accelerate this information sharing and learning process.
3. Supply chains are increasingly penetrating world markets. Power
tools are now more commonplace around the globe and much cheaper to get
if you don’t have them. Similarly, reflective materials are much cheaper
and all sorts of old and new forms have been improved. This makes things
much easier and quicker to scale from a logistical and technical
perspective.

What would be a locally-rooted solar economy?

Building a locally-rooted solar economy – as in a local economy that
could go more than a few weeks without external imports, but can still
benefit from trade with other communities – means redesigning a majority
of agricultural, domestic and economic processes to work with the sun.

Just as all sorts of bio-energy based applications needed to be
re-designed to work with fossil fuels, likewise to move to direct solar
power we need to redesign applications to work with direct solar energy.The best way to make these applications happen is to make free
construction of our reflectors and core-applications freely available so
anyone can build them, use them, and test out new uses. Every new
application that is developed increases the value of building a solar
concentrator, which increases the reasons to adapt other applications
thus increasing the value. The more solar concentrators that are built
the lower the cost becomes, due to increased skill, better designs and
better materials, fueling the positive feedback loop further.